Mini trip report from same time period:
We were there last week (7/17-7/21) and it was a challenging trip between the crowds, heat and rides being down. This was our first trip back since Nov. 2019 (we had AP's that year- we live in Northern Ca, so we would get AP's every other year). I had metered my expectations, but still experienced some frustration.
Wednesday was our only DCA start morning and it was before 10am and Incrediacoaster, Goofy's, Web Slinger's and RCR were all down. Rides were down off and on the entire trip. The crowds were showing up early too. Usually, "in the before times," the first 2 hours at DL would be relatively peaceful with the crowds picking up around 10am... not this trip.
We didn't run into any surly cast members, maybe one exception with the hostess at the Hungry Bear F! dinner line, but they were all generally friendly and helpful.
Highlight of the trip might have been having cocktails at Carthay Circle Lounge at 1:30 on a really busy day. It came at a price ($$) but they sat us inside and the drinks were delicious and our server was great.
Lowlight (besides crowding and ride closures) had to be the Endorian Tip Yip at Docking Bay 7. *** happened to this meal? The breading on the chicken was different and the chicken was some weird possibly piece of thigh with lots of gristle and was really rubbery. My friend's 20 year old daughter (she was sitting at another table-because with the crowds it was hard to find seating for our group of 8) even brought her piece over questioning if it was cooked and safe to eat. I hope the switch to this weird chicken product is just a temporary supply chain problem. They charge over $15 dollars for a gross piece of chicken (nobody finished theirs) and a scoop of instant mashed potatoes with like 5 peas and carrots cubes in it. The food there was always a little overpriced, but it used to be decent.
I still managed to have fun. We did the Hungry Bear F! dinner and WoC dessert party. Aside from our group of 8 (two families) we had other friends (two couples) there at the same time. We hardly saw them because it was hard to navigate everyones schedules, but they reported similar experiences with crowds and long lines.
I tried to keep and open mind about
Genie+ but I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like it. I wasn't thrilled when MaxPass came out because I really dislike the "nickel & dining" aspect. I will admit that I liked using MaxPass, though. I found it much more flexible than Genie+. Some rides we never want to get LL or FP for (Autopia). Some we like to ride multiple times... MaxPass gave us this flexibility.
Another thing I really didn't like was having to pick a starting park and even more so, having to wait until 1pm to be able to hop. I really missed the flexibility.
I was fully expecting to get Covid on this trip. Luckily so far (we've been home 6 days now) we've all escaped it. We did wear masks, but definitely not all the time so we were probably mostly just lucky.